Michael Landon

Why do you think Michael Landon remained a tv star? Why didn't he have a bigger movie career? As Burt Reynolds proved, it wasn't impossible to move from tv to movie star back then.

Don't know.

But he sure was packing in Bonanza.

He wasn't stupid, he knew a film career was out of his reach and starting with LHOTP he had complete control and ownership of his work and made millions, much more than if he tried for a movie career.

Big (relatively) fish, small pond? Perhaps he recognized his limitations as an actor, and capitalized on what he knew to be his strengths/power base and chose not to endanger that by starring in a few movie flops.

Or maybe he just enjoyed what he was doing.

No. He owed it to the world to be a big screen heartthrob. We don't even have one good sex scene of him. And just imagine what his Cosmo centerfold would have been. All we have are endless scenes of him playing father to some buck-toothed, scarecrow looking little girl.

I haven't thought of Michael Landon in ages. He was a household name in his day, and is pretty much forgotten now.

His household name was actually Eugene Orowitz.

Was he one of "them"? IF you know what I mean?

His mother was Irish Catholic so technically, no.

[quote]Was he one of "them"? IF you know what I mean?

Fairy? Fruity? Poof? Cookie smeller? He had something like five children, so he knew his way around the lady parts.

When he died his estate was worth $100 million. And his son Christopher is gay.

Good question. He was gorgeous and a good actor. I don't think he ever tried.

I sort of agree with r2 in that by staying in tv, he had more power and could exercise more control. It was easier to climb the success ladder in tv if his aim was to be a producer.

But I don't think a film career was out of his reach. The 1970s ushered in the era of the "sensitive male" and I think he could have fit right into that mold. He could have played the Alan Alda roles in "Same Time Next Year" and "California Suite" the Jack Nicholson's role in "Heartburn" and the Dustin Hoffman roles in "All The President's Men" and "Kramer vs Kramer."

I always thought he was a poor man's James Garner. Garner managed to go between TV and movies quite easily.

if we want to dirty the field...

let's look at Melissa Gilbert that still idolizes the man, however... she also became one of the strongest hollywood child actor advocates, including (passively, non specific) criticizing the role (beyond actor) he had when she was a child.

Landon was a product of television and made himself a lucrative career out of it. He wrote and directed several episodes of "Bonanza; wrote, directed, and executive produced "Little House on the Prairie" and "Highway to Heaven"; created, directed, and executive produced "Father Murphy." The man was given the keys to the NBC kingdom. Had he gone into movies, he wouldn't have had that power. And he probably knew his fans wouldn't want to see him play anything other than a wholesome family man.

and while I'm not keen on the conspiracy theories or dirtying his legacy..

but I do have to wonder.. given his bipolar temperament, which everyone associated with him notes (hot/cold, aggressively manic and demanding)... how he still maintains this pristine legacy, considering all the actresses noted severe problems with hollywood...

(kind of like all of michael jackson's celebrity lost boys accuse all of hollywood, all of the entertainment industry, except him and go out of their way to defend him.)

R14 too many people saw him as Pa and Little Joe. He was type cast as a certain character and he just couldn't break that perception that audiences had of him.

R15 James Garner was never type case or locked into viewers minds as one character, even when he was doing The Rockford Files. Even Peter Falk was able to separate himself from his Columbo character and do films, even though for most people Peter Falk is only Columbo.

Honestly I don't think Landon was a good enough actor to make it in movies. Maybe if he did westerns, but they were dying out by the late 1970s and 1980s.

Michael Landon was not a good actor. He was lucky to do as well as he did.

In real life, Landon was a chain-smoking drunk with a filthy mouth, the complete opposite of his public image.

Is OP watching VisionTV at 4PM weekdays?

R21, Wasn't he also quite the pussyhound? Three wives, nine children, and still needed lovin' on the side.

He didn't need to do movies. He made plenty of money in television. I don't think he cared about being a movie star.

I remember a clip they showed on his A&E Biography episode where Johnny Carson asks him about there being no women on the Bonanza and Landon said that people suspect the Cartwrights were "homosexuals". He then said no the the Cartwrights weren't gay but thank God Hopsing was. Carson lost his shit and looked like he was going to piss himself laughing. What impressed me was how funny he could be and the fact that he said "thank God" Hopsing was "gay" something you would have never heard someone say on TV in the 1980s.

Michael Landon in his prime could butt fuck me into next week. Jesus!!!

When the height of your movie career is "I was a Teenage Werewolf", you know a good thing when you see it. He was no Olivier but he knew what could score good ratings and made a nice living from it.

ML went from hit series to hit series, his entire career. He was always a great talk-show guest.

The Handsome Prince of TV ain't a bad legacy.

It was that hair! Too much. With it cut he looked like a car with its doors open on both sides. Plus he admitted to wetting the bed and Americans don't go for that golden shower stuff.

He doesn't have the range.

[quote]Americans don't go for that golden shower stuff

Not back then they didn't

He did have a movie career - I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF and he was fucking beautiful in it (as the werewolf, too!).

Little House on the Praire was a great wholesome tv show thanks to Michael Landon.

His son bugs me. Pretty boy, seems to have been handed his writing career, has the money, the husband, the miracle baby. Just seems a little too too. Like no grit, no struggle, no true artists soul.

Some people are happy doing exactly what they are doing. They don't necessarily want more. It always bugs me when someone says "this person let me down" because that person didn't meet their expectations. Who are they to say what someone else should be doing?

He was probably too short to be a movie star in the early 60s when he could have been one--that was before pacino and Hoffman showed that you could be short and could still make it as a leading man. (Before them, there was really only Alan Ladd.) And he was indeed pretty limited as an actor.

As it was, he made a fortune, and did extremely well for himself. And he was the fapping fnatasy of every boy who grew up in the Seventies for his many shirtless scenes in "Little House."

He was EXTREMELY beloved among the people he worked with, even with the bipolar problems. The saddest thing in Melissa Gilbert's hilariouslybutter and grudge-filled memoir "Prairie Girl" is that the main reason she really hates Melissa Sue Anderson so much (even still!!! 45 years later!!) was because Michael Landon clearly loved Missy Sue every bit as much as he loved her. Gilbert wanted to be the favorite 9since she was the star), and he clearly loved them both equally--she has never forgiven Missy Sue for that.

I have a vague memory of an (early 90s?) TV biopic of Michale Landon. There was a scene where he won an award and during his speech in which he extolled his wholesome family values one of his sons glared at him on TV at home because Landon was clearly such a bullshitter. I since thought he was evil in his personal life, but from what you all say he was just a horn dog and control freak.

My mother lives in a retirement home. 18 people died there, but that COVID outbreak is over. For now. But they are locked in. She has taken to DVR HIghway to Heaven every night and tells me that Landon has such nice hair and that the show isn't too religious. How can this be? The same channel plays Touched By An Angel and Murder She Wrote - neither of which interest her. Maybe Landon had something special. Masculine but cute? Sexy nice guy with a bit of a bad boy. I never know with my mom, we're black. Her taste in white men is a mystery. Michael Landon, Harrison Ford and Michael Douglas. Go figure.

Landon was kind of cute though. Nothing special IMO.

Michael Landon and Lee Remick died on the same day. And it seemed that neither got their due - as they had to share their deaths. I liked them both tremendously. But Lee Remick was really a good actress and truly deserved some bigger tributes.

Was this bumped because of the REELz “Autopsy” on him that showed last night?

We need a thread devoted to all the programs of that channel btw, and “Dr. Michael Hunter,” who always promises to make a “big revelation” and then nothing. Plus , the re-enactments are hilarious.

Perfect DL bait.

Lee would have been an interesting Beth Jarrett.

R42, yes I bumped it for that reason. I can't understand why he isn't more of a DL fave.

He was cute, he wasn't threatening, and he had a kind of genius for bowling the ball right down the middle of Middle America (if that makes sense), every single time. And it made him rich, rich, rich.

His daughter, Jennifer Landon, won three consecutive daytime Emmys for "As The World Turns".

Heather Williams was a bad role.

His penis was too prominent for the big screen.

Some of those re-enactments on REELZ are very impressive. Just when you think they can’t possibly pull one off, they do it.

So now we have a 2016 thread bumper? Tired of the 2015 ones, eh?

Watching the re-runs of Bonanza as a kid, I developed a huge crush on the actor who played one of his older brothers (dark-haired actor).

Maybe he didn't like the movie industry. Some actors hate working in movies because of all the sitting around and waiting to be called to the set. TV is a much faster process that doesn't provide for a lot of down time.

I always loved Michael Landon. Growing up in the 70s, he was huge. Always thought he was so handsome. We just couldn't see him as any one else but Papa Ingles. It still blows me away that he wrote most of them and directed them. How many actors today do that?

OT, lived next to him when I was kid. 1162 Tower Road BH. And incredible home he had. Never once saw him.

Well smell you, r56. But seriously, did you know his kids?

A tribute to his abusive mother.

R40, my grandmother was a preacher's wife and had a huge crush on Michael Landon, both from 'Bonanza' and 'LHotP'. I was very young when 'Highway to Heaven' was on, and she loved watching it for "her Michael." The one tabloid she ever bought--and she always claimed it was for my grandfather to use in a sermon railing against gossip and tabloids--had Michael Landon on the cover after he passed away. She kept it until she died, and I've often wondered how many times she reread it and looked at his pics in it. She was also a huge Liberace fan; not uncommon for her age group.

Oh, I didn’t mean it to be snooty, just a dumb little fact. The street is narrow, no sidewalks, walled, tall hedges and NO neighbor interactions. A basketball hoop in the dead end but his kids never joined in. Never saw any of them. But the house, enormous. He must have been very successful. Steve Tisch lives there now.

Well since this thread was brought back from the dead.....

We had this discussion in another thread about Hollywood and films; by the 1950's and certainly from 1960's onward television became the new home if you will of "B" or "C" actors . With the studio system dead, and subsequent other changes rocking film industry into 1970's and beyond you didn't have same sort of environment that existed under the contract studio system.

Michael Landon did a few movies, but nearly all of them were "B" pictures, then there was the infamous God's Little Acre. But overall his start and bulk of career was television. While attractive enough ML never would have been cast as a romantic lead, nor IMHO could he have pulled off roles that say Dustin Hoffman got early on like The Graduate.

Television was very good to ML; he made buckets of money, had fame and notoriety (only Lucille Ball was on cover of People more times than ML), and eventually did work on other side of camera. Not too shabby IMHO

He was in 2 eps of The Rifleman back in the late 50s. Damn, what a cute heartthrob. His personality outshined Chuck Connors. You could see his star quality. Sigh.

The Cosmo centrefold would have had to be three pages, [R5]. One for his face and upper body, two for his cock.

[quote]She has taken to DVR HIghway to Heaven every night and tells me that Landon has such nice hair and that the show isn't too religious. How can this be?The same channel plays Touched By An Angel and Murder She Wrote - neither of which interest her

I watched Highway to Heaven reruns on cable as a kid in the 90s. Back then, I never really thought deeply about the episodes. I also watched Touched By An Angel as a sort of weird comfort food.

A few years back, I was browsing through Amazon Prime Video and I saw Highway to Heaven on there. I started watching episodes here and there. The show was corny for the most part, but there were some episodes that were quite good. The show didn't push religion all that much. It was more people being kind and trying to become better people. There were episodes in which the word "God" wasn't much mentioned at all.

Sometime last year, a very conservative Trumpster cousin of mine was bitching on Facebook about the lack of Christian programming on Facebook and she mentioned missing shows like Highway to Heaven, Touched by An Angel, and The Waltons. I laughed at her post because if she watched Highway to Heaven or Touched By An Angel today, I doubt she would like the shows all that much. Both shows covered topics like racism and poverty in humane and compassionate ways in which Trump supporters would disagree with. There was an episode of Highway to Heaven, in which a Vietnam veteran's Amerasian daughter moves in with him and is treated terribly by some people in the neighborhood. It was sad episode to watch at times and there was one scene that would probably piss off Trumpsters.

Touched By An Angel seemed to push religion more. But, there was a great episode about a gay man dying of AIDS and it was pro-gay episode as one angel told him that God wasn't ashamed of him and loved him. The episode was called The Violin Lesson and I've rewatched it many times over the years. Another episode of TBAA that I could see Trumpsters hating today was one where the angels were helping Mexican immigrants and a racist was trying to get them deported.

It was well known in Hollywood of his HUGE penis. Every horny girl and gay guy wanted to fuck him.

R50 those re-enactments are so hilariously campy. I think my favorite one was on the Dana Plato autopsy, when some chubby kid in baloney girls who looks absolutely nothing like her runs into the set and tells everyone she’s pregnant...to dead silence. Where’s their Erin Moran, autopsy, btw??

Their autopsy and Behind Closed Doors have taken the place of E! true Hollywood Story and TV tales, respectively. Except those shows used to actually get interviews with most of the cast. The REELz re-enactments really take the cake, though,

I always thought his last interview (on Carson) was eerie because he looked good and he said he was feeling good, but he died just 7 weeks later. He actually had a good sense of humor, so I don’t know why he didn’t try a sitcom.

Melissa Gilbert tried to do a sitcom with Rosie O.

His little joe looks tiny.

I will always remember that when he died Alison Arngrim said something hilarious-sweet like, "He not only was one of the nicest men I've ever met, but he also had the tightest jeans I've ever seen."

He didn’t because he died prematurely of cancer

He went a long way from the days he was living in a cheap apartment building on Franklin Ave. in Hollywood when he started on Bonanza to that lux property in Beverly Hills. An old friend of mine used to see him packing up the trunk of his car in the mornings as she drove by on her way to work. She said he was like clockwork, almost every day there he'd be.

OP, your questions are easily answered given the time of Michael's popularity. TV gave him more control - he could direct, produce, write, act. That wasn't going to happen in movies back in the day.

Remember the TV movie about his life?his mom hung his pissed sheets to dry from his front window for everyone to see.

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